Now some happy news from the ocean: blue whales have been spotted in migratory routes and feeding grounds in the Pacific that has been void of blue-whales for over half a century. Sightings are also increasing in the Atlantic, and recent research suggests that the Antarctic blue whale population is growing at a heartening 6% a year.
The annual whale expedition off the Japanese port city of Kushiro ended this weekend after having caught 59 minke whales, the Japanese Fisheries Agency said in a statement.
Florida anglers are being sharply criticized after a video of them free-gaffing a Mako shark off South Florida this week was made public on the Internet.
The rare Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica) has been declared National Aquatic Animal of India. A few days after the formal declaration, which took place at a National Ganga River Basic Authority meeting in New Delhi earlier this week, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar announced that he has directed state authorities to put a halt to dolphin hunting in the Ganga.
This Sunday, a mile-long super pod consisting of over 1,500 dolphins was encountered by eight lucky Sea Trust volunteers off the coast of Pembrokeshire, UK.
Most IWC* member countries accidently kill whales, e.g. by unintentionally ramming into them with motorized vessels or by using fishing methods that may entangle and suffocate these air-breathing mammals as accidental by-catch. While this type of accidental deaths is reported from most member nations, Japan and South Korea have an inordinate amount of accidental by-catchs, says Professor Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University.
Norway, one of the two countries that openly defy the IWC ban on commercial whaling, has suspended this year’s whale hunt mid-season after catching less than half the quota of 885 whales. The suspension coincides with this week’s annual IWC meeting in Portugal, but is not linked to the meeting or any adjacent negotiations. Instead, a lack of demand in the Norwegian distribution chain is cited as the reason behind the surprising deferment.
Australia and New Zealand announced Thursday that they will carry out a six-week long non-lethal whale research expedition in the Antarctic early next year. Dubbing the expedition non-lethal is a direct challenge to Japan’s research program that kills up to 1,000 whales a year.
According to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), Greenland intends to ask permission to hunt a quota of 50 humpbacks over five years. The request will be put forward at an international key meeting on Tuesday where the 40 year long moratorium on whaling will be discussed.
A new study funded by the U.S. navy and the Office of Naval Research show that Beaked whales are at higher risk of developing decompression sickness since they live with extremely high levels of nitrogen in their blood and body tissues.
Bottle nosed dolphins living along the coast of Florida are getting used to supplement their diet by snatching bait from fishing lines or circle recreational anglers practising catch-and-release. Some dolphins have even made a habit out of routinely approaching humans to beg for food.
This Saturday, about 55 False killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) stranded on Long Beach, Kommetjie, in South Africa. Both adults and calves began to appear on the shore around 5.30 in the morning, perhaps as a result of the bad weather. This incident is the second large stranding in a short period of time; in March about 80 whales stranded in Hamelin Bay on Western Australia’s southern coast.
The 2009 whaling season has now started in the waters off Iceland.
Iceland and Norway are the only two countries that openly defy the international whaling moratorium; Japan is instead using a loop whole, claiming their whaling to be carried out for scientific purposes.
The Snubfin dolphin (Orcaella heinsohni), recognized as a species as recently as 2005, have been spotted while utilizing a rare hunting technique previously only noted in the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), a close relative of the Snubfin.
Thanks to a system of underwater hydrophones, scientists have been able to document the presence of North Atlantic Right whales in an area where they were believed to have gone extinct.
